


Promise Of A Broken Truth

by Torra



Series: Broken Truth [3]
Category: Secret of the Unicorn Queen - Sherman
Genre: Angst, Gen, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-02
Updated: 2009-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:15:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torra/pseuds/Torra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reit was watching the door too, now, counting down the seconds left until help arrived.</p><p>"If you don't have them take me away, I won't tell them you've faked your credentials and are living under an assumed name."  Reit's eyes flew to his now and Johnathan nodded slowly.  "Give me a chance to talk, and I won't tell them you're here trying to escape from accusations of pedophilia, kidnapping, and murder."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promise Of A Broken Truth

Johnathan McCarthy looked around the white lab, searching for a flash of wild hair or poorly ironed shirt that he vaguely remembered from the past, though he had quickly discovered that both characteristics were plentiful and misleading on a college campus. But of course he already knew that; this was hardly the first campus he'd come to, and far from the first lab he'd examined, each time looking for the same person. A man who had either destroyed his world, or could possibly help him save it.

 

"Can I help you?"

 

Jonathan suppressed the urge to jump, and turned to find a slight Asian woman standing behind him, her lab coat cinched tightly around her waist with a bit of what appeared to be extension cord. She looked very confused to see him here, but friendly, so he put on his best businessman smile and nodded. "Yes, please, if you could, that would be wonderful. I'm looking for someone, I believe he teaches here? Manuel Simmons?"

 

The student frowned for a moment before smiling quite suddenly and nodding. "Yes, Professor Simmons, from Quebec! He joined us last fall semester, I believe." She nodded, pleased to have placed the name. "He _should_ be in lab three, I think, he usually is this time of day."

 

"Lab Three? Is that on this floor?"

 

The woman smiled again and shook her head. "No, two levels up. I have to wait for some test results to print out. If you'd like, I can show you."

 

Johnathan gave her a bright smile he hardly felt, and nodded vigorously. "Yes, please, that would be absolutely wonderful, Doctor...?"

 

The woman laughed, clearly flattered to be mistaken for a graduate and not the upperclassman she obviously was. "Samantha Kumiko, but not a doctor yet. Soon though!" she assured him.

 

He nodded. "I'm certain. Lab Three, then?"

 

"Yes, this way." Turning quickly, he trailed a few steps behind her as she led the way down the long corridor he had entered from and towards a stairwell tucked around a corner. He stepped forward quickly to open the door for her, and she gave him another brilliant flash of smile. As she led him up the steps, Johnathan couldn't help but feel guilty, with one part of him upset for putting on such a happy, lying act for this helpful young woman (who--if she knew who he was, or who he was looking for--would probably be calling for the police rather than glancing at him coyly from beneath her lashes) and the other part reminding him that he was a married man. Or had been, for a fair number of years.

 

He glanced fitfully at his empty ring finger. Its no longer visible tan line stood out only in his memory, forcing that part of his brain into silence. He _wasn't_ married anymore, he had nothing to feel guilty about...except for the fact that he was leading this young woman on. Just a little bit. But he was _not_ being unfaithful. And Catherine had no right invading his mind like this after they had been divorced for so long.

 

But by the time that thought had run its course through his brain, the pair had reached the appropriate landing and this time Samantha beat him to the pull, holding the door open wide for him and smiling while he passed, even as she cast her eyes downward. "It's just down here. He may be teaching, though, I'm not sure, I haven't taken any of his classes before. If he is, I can show you a place to wait. Maybe...maybe get a cup of coffee?"

 

She didn't look at him as she said it, and Jonathan suppressed a sigh and forced another smile. "Coffee would be good...if he's teaching. But I'm afraid if he's free, it's quite important I speak to him."

 

She nodded frantically, blushing now. "Oh, yes, of course! Only if you have to wait, of course." She hurried the last few steps, still not looking at him. "Here it is!"

 

She and Johnathan both bent their heads to peer into the long, wire-thatched window set into the heavy wooden door, checking to see if anyone was inside. "I don't see anyone, but--" Jonathan started, but his voice deserted him as a thin, frail looking man stepped out of an inner doorway inside, clearly having come from adjoining lab or office.

 

"There he is." Samantha didn't seem to think anything was odd at Johnathan's sudden silence and pulled on the door handle before he could say anything. "Professor? There's someone here to speak with you."

 

The professor looked up from the sheaves of paper in his hand that he had been studying as he walked, and if it was possible, grew even more pale as his eyes reached the door. All three of them froze for a moment, Johnathan stunned that he'd finally found his quarry, Samantha smiling that she'd done her job, and the professor in panicked desperation.

 

"Doctor--"

 

"NO!" The man screamed, his papers dropping unheeded from nerveless fingers. "NO! Get away from me!"

 

"No, I--!" Johnathan tried to hurry forward, but only made it a few steps into the room before the professor dashed to the side, trying to put as much space and as many lab tables as he could between them.

 

"Don't hurt me! SECURITY! GET SECURITY!" he screamed.

 

Stricken, Samantha's eyes went wide as she looked between the two men, until finally she ripped them from Johnathan and ran down the hallway screaming for a guard.

 

"Please! Doctor Reit! No! I'm not here to hurt you!"

 

"Get away from me! I told you, I don't know where she is, I didn't hurt her, and I didn't do anything to her! I never hurt your daughter!"

 

Johnathan didn't try to get any closer, instead raising his hands, palms open, into the air and tried to keep his voice level. "I'm not here to hurt you, Dr. Reit. I swear I'm not."

 

The professor didn't look like he believed a word of it, but as long as Johnathan didn't try to come any closer, he didn't try to run any further away. Not that he _could_. The terrified man had managed to back himself against a long, sink filled wall, with several tables, dozens of chairs, and Johnathan McCarthy between him and the door.

 

Johnathan took a deep breath and kept his hands visible. He could hear heavy footsteps running his way now and knew that he was almost out of time. "You have my word, Dr. Reit, I don't want to hurt you. I just want to talk. I _need_ to talk to you! I need to know...I need to know the truth!"

 

Reit shook his head. "You don't _believe_ the truth. It doesn't matter what I tell you, you never believe _any_ of it! You're just here to have me arrested again!"

 

Johnathan looked out the open doorway, he could see the guards approaching now. "Things have changed," he promised, his voice lowering as he tried to give it a calm and trusting sound. He looked back to the man across the room. "I've...I've seen...I can't explain what I've seen. No one can...but you. Maybe. I just...I just need to know. I just need to _talk_..."

 

Reit was watching the door too, now, counting down the seconds left until help arrived.

 

"If you don't have them take me away, I won't tell them you've faked your credentials and are living under an assumed name." Reit's eyes flew to his now and Johnathan nodded slowly. "Give me a chance to talk, and I won't tell them you're here trying to escape from accusations of pedophilia, kidnapping, and murder."

 

Reit's hands were shaking now, but as the guards--two burly men who looked frighteningly well-armed for a collage campus--burst through the doorway, he gripped the long folds of his lab coat and clenched his jaw tightly, his eyes never leaving Johnathan's. "There's been a mistake."

 

The guards froze, both with their hands on holstered weapons (Johnathan later found out they were simply tasers, not guns, though he's not sure he would have been any less scared of the pain had he known this at the time). "Professor?" The thinner man finally asked.

 

Reit took a deep breath and shook his head, walking slowly and assuredly back to his office doorway. "I'm sorry, I apologize. I haven't seen Johnathan in many years, and I'm afraid he looks very much like a man I knew in my childhood. A man who hurt me very badly." Reit shook his head and crouched down to pick up the papers strewn across the floor. "I am _truly_ sorry."

 

The guards, however, didn't seem to be buying this. "Professor, this looks to be more than simple surprise. If this man is a threat to your safety--" the thicker one started.

 

"I was born in Czechoslovakia, gentleman," Reit interrupted. "I didn't live there long, but pain felt during one's formative years does tend to linger." He looked up from his efforts and gave them a shaky grin. "Does it not?"

 

The thin one frowned deeply. "Czechoslovakia?" he repeated.

 

Reit nodded. "Indeed." When the two men didn't remove their hands from their weapons, he frowned. "You don't know much about recent European history, do you? About the wars or revolutions experienced in the last half century throughout many parts of the continent?"

 

It was Samantha, who Johnathan could now see standing behind the guards, pale and scared looking, who finally spoke up. "It was...violent. Dangerous." One of the guards turned to look at her and she nodded. "When Czechoslovakia became a communist-ruled state, and after...things are not good there, and haven't been for a long time. I...I took some Euro History classes in my freshman year," she explained when she found everyone's attention suddenly on her. "There's even talk of another revolution there now."

 

Reit nodded and stood up, his papers once again in hand. "I do apologize. I was just so startled to see him, distracted by my work, and then I look up and... well, I feel quite the fool now, I must admit."

 

The guards looked from Reit to Johnathan, and back to Dr. Reit again. "You're _sure_ you know this man?"

 

Reit nodded again. "Oh yes, very sure. This has happened before, when Johnathan has come upon me unexpectedly."

 

Johnathan winced. "Yes, I'm sorry. It's just been so long, I'd forgotten. I didn't mean to startle you, I'm afraid I was rather distracted myself." He looked over at Samantha Kumiko, who blushed furiously, though from embarrassment or anger he couldn't tell.

 

The guards looked between them again, before the thin one finally shook his head and relaxed. "Professor, we have strict rules here about security."

 

Reit nodded. "Yes, I'm sure, and I _do_ apologize. It won't happen again, I promise you."

 

Johnathan nodded. "No, I'm sorry. I should have called ahead, let him know I was coming."

 

With one last frustrated sigh, and a long, knowing look that said much about their opinions on absent minded professors and Czechoslovakian rebellions, the guards finally gave a warning not to call for help unless it was actually needed, before finally walking back to their posts, muttering between themselves the whole time.

 

Samantha was left standing outside the doorway, watching the two men inside the room. Both of them were trying to look calm and contrite while being careful to not look at each other directly. "I..." she started.

 

"I'm sorry." Johnathan stepped to the doorway and gave her a smile. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to give you a scare like that. If I'd been thinking straight..." he trailed off and tried to blush for her.

 

Reit cleared his throat and nodded to Johnathan. "We should talk...privately."

 

He nodded, and looked back to the still shaking Samantha. "Again, I'm sorry. Maybe, maybe I can make it up to you?" he asked, knowing full well he wouldn't even try.

 

Samantha looked at him carefully, before looking at Professor Simmons, and then back at Johnathan. She shook her head. "No." And then walked away, not looking back at either of them.

 

Finally alone, the two men couldn't seem to tear their eyes away from the now empty doorway. Finally, with a sigh, Reit drew Johnathan's attention back to him. "Perhaps we should talk in my office?"

 

Johnathan nodded. "I think privacy would be best. I doubt this conversation is one either of us would like anyone to overhear." He paused. "In fact, perhaps this would be best held outside of a public campus?"

 

Reit shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "I agreed to talk because you threatened to end my career....again." He looked Johnathan firmly in the eye. "That does not mean I trust you not to attack me as soon as you have the chance. I haven't forgotten what happened the last time we were alone together."

 

Johnathan flushed and looked at the floor, deeply ashamed. "I'm sorry for that. I can't excuse my actions except to say that I was blind with grief and anger."

 

"As well as more than a few shots of scotch, if I remember correctly."

 

Johnathan winced and forced himself to nod. "More than I should have had." He took a deep breath and met Reit's eyes slowly. "I've made a lot of changes in my life in the last four years. In the last two, especially. I'm not the same man I was the last time we met. And in truth, I'm quite ashamed of the man I was then." He took another deep breath and pulled himself up to his full height and raised his head. "Dr. Reit, I apologize. For everything. For everything I've said to you, for everything I did to you, I apologize. I no longer believe you would hurt my daughter. And if I hadn't...if I _wasn't_..." he trailed off.

 

"Are you saying," Reit asked slowly, "that given the chance to go back, you'd do it differently? That you'd listen to what I had to say instead of accusing me of murder?"

 

Johnathan watched Reit for a moment before choosing his words carefully. "I'm saying that I wish I _could_ say that. But the man I was then, the man I was for several years after losing Sheila...all I can say is that I am not that man now. And God willing never will be again. And that if you are able to forgive me, I am now a man able to ask the questions I _should_ have asked then."

 

"A man now able to listen?"

 

Johnathan nodded. "A man now able to try."

 

Reit considered him quietly for several long, heart breaking moments, before finally nodding resignedly. "Very well. Come into my office."

 

Johnathan let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and walked calmly and slowly into the doorway Reit had first appeared from, being careful to keep a respectful distance from the other man, putting forth as much of an air of harmlessness as he could.

 

The office was a classic image of a college professor's. A large wooden desk dominated the far end, facing a blind-covered window looking into one of the adjoining classroom. Dark colored filing cabinets were banked across one wall, over-stuffed bookcases the other, and papers, textbooks, and random bits of collage brick-a-brack layered over everything. With flashbacks to his own collage years (sadly misspent chasing after Catherine as much as they were buried in textbooks) he chose one of the two rickety-looking wooden chairs in front and took a seat as Reit slid into the larger, but no less rickety-looking chair behind the desk.

 

Leaning forward, Reit set his stack of papers onto an already existing stack of papers on top of the nearest filing cabinet and braced his folded hands on top of the desk. "Before we begin, can I ask how you found me? I went to great lengths to create my new identity, I even went so far as to change my legal status to say I'm Canadian. How did you find me here?"

 

"It wasn't easy," Johnathan sighed. "I've actually had people looking for you ever since you left. We had three private detectives on you in that first year. Two of them quit, though, when they could find so much as a traffic ticket on you. Catherine kept wanting to hire more, but I gave up on finding you and refused to pay for them." He winced at the memory, keeping his eye fixed on his hands in his lap. "Things got very bad for us around that time. Or, well, they probably just started to come to a head then. I was buried in my work and escaping into the bottle, and Catherine was running away from the world altogether. And neither of us could forgive each other enough to turn to the other for help.

 

"It wasn't until..." he trailed off and he could feel Reit frowning, but didn't think he could say the words just yet. He didn't yet feel ready to describe the event out loud to another person, he had trouble enough thinking about them inside the safety of his own mind. Instead he fiddled with his bare ring finger as he talked. "Something happened, and it made us both re-examine our lives, to actually take a look at what we had become. The one thing we _could_ agree on was that we shouldn't be together anymore. Catherine and I finalized the divorce last year, though we've actually been apart for a number of months before that."

 

"I'm sorry."

 

Reit sounded weary but sincere, and Johnathan nodded, keeping his eyes on his hands. "So am I. But really...the people we became weren't good for each other. I don't know if we would have worked out even if Sheila _had_ still been in our lives, but I do know that losing her was just too much for Catherine, for both of us. We weren't the people we used to be." He looked up finally, taking a deep breath. "And I am not the same person that I was then, either.

 

"I said some truly awful things about you, Dr. Reit, and did some things that were even worse. It deeply shames me to think about how I acted towards you. Grief and anger and alcohol can only excuse so much." He looked down again and shook his head. "I'm sorry I worked so hard to hurt you."

 

Reit let out a deep, painful sounding breath and Johnathan could see him slump back into his chair, his eyes tight and his fingers once again shaking. "If she had been my child...I don't know, I might have acted similarly. Lord knows I thought of her like family anyhow."

 

Johnathan frowned to himself, confused, but didn't say anything about that. Raising a hand slowly, Reit pressed at the bridge of his nose. "So if you had given up on private detectives, how _did_ you find me? As I said, I went to great lengths to say hidden."

 

Grateful for the temporary reprieve, Johnathan nodded and once again raised his head to tell the story, refusing to retreat into guilt again so soon. "After the...event, I spent a lot of time by myself. I spent a very great deal of time trying to understand what had happened, not just what I'd seen, but everything that had happened in the years before it, and everything my life had become in the weeks afterward. In the end I realized that I really _couldn't_ understand what I had become until I finally understood the _truth_ of what had happened. And that you were the only person I knew who could help me with that. So I started to re-examine the findings, few as they were, of the private investigators we had hired.

 

"Since they couldn't find you in the US, they thought you had escaped to somewhere else, another country, and since they couldn't find any evidence of that, they ran out of leads. Once I finally accepted the idea that you _hadn't_ left the country, I had to think of ways in which you might have stayed while _seeming_ to be out of the country. And one of those theories was that you had made it look like you had _entered_ the country instead."

 

Reit nodded. "Exactly." He laughed a little to himself. "Everyone always looks for paperwork running _away_, they never look for evidence of running _towards_."

 

Johnathan nodded. "Once I had that, though, I just had to look for professions that fit your qualifications and education, held by people visiting from outside the US. I've actually been looking for you on more then a dozen different campuses across the country. I had almost given up hope." He laughed a little himself now. "In all honesty? If you hadn't been here today, I very well may have given up on this theory all together."

 

Reit snorted. "So if I'd just been in class today, I might have been able to live the rest of my life in peace?"

 

Johnathan smiled and nodded. "Yes. Sorry."

 

Reit couldn't help but laugh this time, and after a moment, Johnathan felt himself join in.

 

"Very well then. So you've found me. Now what, Mr. McCarthy?"

 

"Now...now it's time to hear the truth. And this time, I promise you, I _will_ listen."

 

Reit eyed him suspiciously. "You swear? You will not decide I am lying and jump across this table again?"

 

Johnathan nodded. "I promise not to do the table thing, again, but while I _am_ more inclined to believe you this time, I'll have to reserve judgment on your story until I've actually heard it," he admitted. "But I do swear about the table thing."

 

Reit nodded with yet another deep sigh. "Very well. I don't think I could fairly ask for more at the moment. No scientist should make assumptions about an outcome before the experiment is complete."

 

"Thank you for understanding."  


* * *

  
Three hours later both men were emotionally exhausted, but finally seemed able to talk without guilty glances or angry, unspoken accusations in their words. Reit had finally finished recounting the story of his friendship with Sheila, including his efforts to retrieve her from the world she was trapped in. It would have gone much more quickly if Johnathan hadn't been a superb mathematician in his own right, with an extensive education in computers. But, since his questions were logical and thorough, he and Reit often found themselves sidetracked discussing the science behind the events as well as the details of what had actually happened.

 

"And do you think you _can_ bring her back?" Johnathan finally asked. It was a question they both had been avoiding since the conversation began.

 

Reit sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Truthfully, I'm not sure. If I can rebuild my machine, then yes, I believe I can re-create the results. I still have the readings I took from my previous travels there, and with work and time, I do believe, or at least I deeply _hope_, that I can make contact with that strange realm again. The real problem, strangely enough, isn't _making_ contact with the world again, it's making contact with Sheila herself."

 

Johnathan frowned. "How do you mean?"

 

"Well, the world, it's a _world_, just like any other. In fact I believe it to be another version of our own Earth, a sort of 'What If' experiment of the Universe, very similar geographically to our own world and it's climates and creatures, but with a few distinct differences in the inhabitants evolution. Even if we do make contact with the correct _world_, Sheila could be anywhere upon it, as where we are on this end does not directly correspond to where we come out over there, in the past I came out somewhere in southern Italy, I believe. And even if we do get close, even if we manage to come out the other side on the proper continent or country, as I discovered on my last trip, trapped jumping from point to point and time to time there, it is a _very_ large countryside. I believe our geographic locations do parallel in traveling between the worlds, but that is still a vast territory to cover." Reit shook his head. "And there's still another problem: even if we _do_ get the right continent, the right country, _and_ the right actual town, assuming she's still alive," Reit couldn't seem to stop hitch in his breath at saying that, though he hid it well, "even if we _do_ find her, we have no way of knowing how much time has passed." Reit shook his head. "As I've said, time seems to flow differently between our worlds. She could be the same age as when she left, or she could be nearing a hundred, or it could be that there is nothing left of her but her great-great-grandchildren."____

 

Johnathan's body hit the back of his chair hard as he felt his breath momentarily taken away. He had accepted that the woman he had seen two years ago was his daughter, older and more mature, he had accepted the concept that wherever she had spent her time away, time _had_ passed more quickly for her...but he had never followed that thought to this conclusion. He had never considered that time for her, wherever she was, was _continuing_ to pass more quickly.

 

She had said that nine years had passed for her after she had left home, but how much time had passed sense then? Another nine? Another ninety? Or nine hundred? Would anything even be _left_ of his little girl by the time he found her again? He'd spent the last two years believing that maybe he wasn't too late after all, but was he wrong? Was he already too late? Was any of this even _real_?

 

"And why is it that every time I mention time dilation, or the possibility that Sheila might be experiencing time much more quickly then we are here, you look away and try very hard not to draw attention to yourself, Mr. McCarthy?"

 

Johnathan couldn't stop his body from jumping, his eyes going wide as he lifted his head and stared at Reit, who now offered him a small, sardonic smile. "You thought I didn't notice?" He gave a small chuckle. "I assure you, Mr. McCarthy, I _am_ a trained observer, and it is, in fact, my job to watch the world around me and observe the way objects and conditions interact with each other, as well as the results they produce when they do so." He sat forward, leaning against his desk again, as he had at the start with his hands folded together. "At every point in this interaction that I have mentioned time fields, time dilations, aging, or the life that I myself did witness Sheila living and thriving in in that world, you withdraw into yourself and try to hide the fact that you feel immensely guilty about something. You repeatedly mention some great event which made you re-evaluate your life and your actions. An event so altering, that it has bought you here to me now. And yet even now, you skillfully avoid actually _discussing_ that event or it's details." He paused for a moment before continuing in a softer voice, "And since we are here, and since you _are_ listening to what I have to say, I can only _assume_ that whatever occurred, it _did_ involve Sheila in some way."

 

He sat back again, keeping his hands folded and resting now on the very edge of the desk. "Considering all that, I believe it is now time for _you_ to talk, Mr. McCarthy." Reit nodded again, letting his hands fall into his lap. "Yes, I do believe it is your turn to explain, and mine to listen."

 

Johnathan stared for a bit longer, before shaking his head slowly, slack-jawed. "You'll have to forgive me, Doctor, but I seem to have gotten into the habit of forgetting that you _are_ a brilliant doctor and that _that_ was the very reason Sheila entered your life in the first place." He rubbed a hand across his eyes and slowly forced the muscles of his back to relax. "It's hard, I know, we've been sitting here for hours discussing the scientific details--as much as we can with our differing science and mathematical backgrounds--of how parallel worlds are possible and how my daughter came to be living in one, but I still find myself falling back into my old pattern of thinking of you as nothing more than Sheila's odd friend: the odd-ball, absent minded professor who the entire town knows about, and most simply find amusing."

 

Johnathan shook his head again and leaned forward, bracing his palms against this thighs. "I think I need to apologize to you yet again. You're right, I do need to tell you this, and I _have_ been avoiding it. I'm afraid...I'm afraid it's yet another thing that I find unending guilt over, though I am hoping that by being here, by finding you at last and _listening_, that I might _begin_ to put things right."

 

Finding he needed something to do with his hands (other than playing with the non-existent wedding ring he still kept feeling still on his finger, a nervous habit he feared he might never break), he got up from his seat, picked up their now empty coffee cups and went over to the small machine hidden away on one of the bookcases to refill them. With shaking hands he carefully began pouring out measured amounts of the dark, and now mostly stale, liquid into both cups. As his hands mechanically completed the process, he tried to order his thoughts enough to figure out how to best explain the next stage of his story. After setting the carafe back onto it's warming plate, his mind remained a confused jumble of warring thoughts and emotions, and any words he might have picked out slipped though his mental fingers.

 

With a frustrated sigh, he gave up, and braced his hands against the shelf to either side of the coffee and took several breaths and while he tried to find _any_ words, only to hear his own voice blurt out, "Sheila is alive."

 

The creak of a chair and a quick intake of breath were Dr. Reit's only reply. Johnathan could not bring himself to face the man, and he winced at his own bluntness. Reaching for the packets of synthetic sugar lying nearby, he began to stack them into neat, compact little piles. "Sheila is alive and well, and an adult." He took a deep breath, the paper crinkling as he clutched one of the bright pink packets tight enough for white grains to slip out of an unseen tear. "Or at least she was when I saw her."

 

"When--" Reit started, but Johnathan didn't dare stop now, even if he couldn't actually _look_ at the other man as he spoke.

 

"Two years ago. She spent three days outside our house, watching us. It scared my wife to no end, but I actually didn't believe her at first. She developed a life of panic and hysterical paranoia after Sheila disappeared, and I was in such a bad state myself that I used that as an excuse to continue fighting with her. To belittle her over her fears. I even went so far as to blame her constant phone calls for my declining productivity at work. Told her how close I was to being fired because of her constant terror, and how often I had to go running home to her." He snorted softly to himself. "I knew full well that there was no one to blame but myself. It was just easier to blame her."

 

He shook his head and finally and pushed away from the bookcase, shaking the sticky grains from his fingertips. Reaching back over, he took two packets off the pile he had just organized and picked up the coffee cups before returning to his seat, passing one cup and both packets of sugar to Dr. Reit before continuing his story. "I know I will never be able to make that up to Catherine. If I _had_ been fired, and I know for a fact it was a very close thing, it would not have been because of her. I never went so far as to drink while _on_ the job, but my drinking at home, and my depression, and my ever increasing anger issues were all making my life hell, and I, in turn, was making life hell for everyone around me, including my co-workers. I was never late, and I worked as much overtime as they would let me, but only as an excuse to show how in control of everything I still was. Despite the hours I spent there, my work rate kept going down, and I produced less and less _good_ work with every week that passed. I was combative and aggressive and so hostile that it's a miracle I wasn't escorted off the premises by security _months_ before the event. I refused to learn the new programs, I only corrected my mistakes when forced to, and even then I wouldn't actually _admit_ that the mistakes were my own fault. I'd always find some reason why they could be blamed on someone else."

 

Johnathan stared down into his coffee before continuing. "On the third day that Cathie saw a strange, almost frightening looking woman watching the house from across the street, I went home to yell at her. I only came home because she threatened to call the cops and I didn't want the embarrassment of the entire neighborhood seeing the police in our home again. So I went to her, and immediately picked a fight.

 

"During our fight, the woman entered our house. It--" The words caught in Johnathan's throat and he had to swallow a painful gulp of coffee to wash them down before he could try again. "She claimed to be Sheila. She..." he trailed off again, his eyes looking at someone not there. "She looked so _young_...I didn't recognize her at all, not at first, but she... The more she talked, the more she _moved_...the more she looked like my child."

 

He shook it off and cleared his throat, setting the mug down on the desk. "She knew things about us and our family that no one else could, but we weren't willing to listen. She tried to tell us a story about living on another world, but we just _weren't_ willing to listen." He closed his eyes tightly and took another deep breath. "I was a coward, I just sat there and did nothing...I couldn't _do anything_. I sat there and listened to the awful things Cathie said to her and did _nothing_. I _let_ her say those awful, hurtful things to that poor girl, despite how much it was clearly hurting her." He opened his eyes wide and pierced Reit with his furious, heart wrenching gaze. "I just sat there and _let her_. It doesn't matter _who_ the woman was! It doesn't matter if the girl was Sheila or you, or a perfect stranger, no one should be allowed to inflict that kind of thoughtless pain on another person! No one!"

 

Reit tried to shake his head and say something, but Johnathan pressed on, ignoring him. "And she _still_ kept trying to prove who she was, despite that!" The fight within him, as sudden as it had come on, just as suddenly seemed to drain out of him, and he fell back into the chair once more. "But as I said, neither of us were willing to listen to her story. Or perhaps neither of us were even _able_ to listen, not about anything, but especially not to something so wild and unbelievable that this grown woman before us was our missing little girl." His gaze got lost in the air again, focused on nothing but the past. "After the longest, most frightening twenty minutes of my life, she gave up. She took a picture off the mantle above our fireplace, and promised to never bother us again.

 

"And then she disappeared into thin air." Johnathan came back to himself slowly. Reit said nothing, just letting him gather himself together again, and Johnathan found himself immensely grateful for that.

 

Finally, when Johnathan gave a nod that he was ready to continue, Reit leaned forward and asked quietly, but eagerly, "You actually _saw_ her performing magic? Right there in front of you?"

 

Johnathan reached forward and picked his mug up once again, expecting to find his hands still shaking, but pleased to find he now felt far calmer then he had in months. "It was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen," he admitted. "Till the day I die, I'll never forget what it looked like, what it _felt_ like." He considered for a moment before adding, "You know, despite how it played out, despite the how badly I wanted to think she was just some nut job off the street who decided to fixate on us, I couldn't help but believe her. Catherine kept insisting that you had hired her, that she was an actor you sent to get us to stop chasing you, to stop us from blaming _you_. But when I saw how her eyes filled up with tears when Cathie told her what she thought of you, I think that's when I started to believe her.

 

"She was horrified when Cathie told her we suspected you in her death." He paused. "After she was gone, Catherine was so...calm. _Cold_. She looked _sane_ for the first time in _months_, and it...truthfully, Dr. Reit, it _terrified_ me. That's when I realized she was no longer the same woman I had married.

 

"A week later, my boss took me aside and helped me." Johnathan shook his head and let his eyes drifted to the half empty cup in his hands. "He told me how bad I looked, how bad things had become around me at work, and how close he had been to firing me." He paused. "But then he told me that in the last few days I'd looked defeated, that I'd looked like a man who had just hit rock bottom and didn't see any way back up. He said that once I hit that point, that I might be ready to actually get some help. Craig took me to my first AA meeting that night. Honestly, I still don't know that I was actually an alcoholic, but I _was_ relying on alcohol to distance me from my problems. I was using scotch to fix my life. And every time I did that, I was letting it take _over_ my life. It was the worst kind of crutch and the only way for me to survive was learn to live without it."

 

Johnathan finally gave up on the last of the coffee and set it down on the edge of the desk once more. "One of the steps in recovery is to find everyone you hurt while you were drinking and apologize to them, to face up to what you've become and what you've done, and to seek forgiveness, trying to make whatever amends you can. That's when I decided to find you. And...and I hope that if we work together, that maybe someday I can find that woman, find _Sheila_, and apologize for the man I was when she came back to us. Even if it's the last thing I do, I want to at least apologize to her for turning my back on her when she finally came home. I _need_ to do that."

 

For awhile the two men simply sat there in silence together, letting the circulated air of the school brush around them as they took in everything that had just been said. Finally, with shaky breath and a firm conviction, it was Dr. Reit who spoke up. "I believe I am close."

 

Johnathan frowned up at him, confused at the non sequitur. "Close to what?"

 

"To finishing rebuilding the device," Reit explained. "Or at least closer to finishing than I have been since the police confiscated my first devices."

 

Johnathan sat up straighter. "Do you mean--"

 

"Yes. It's not there yet, but perhaps soon. Perhaps within a few week's time, even." Reit looked Johnathan steadily in the eye."You may have your chance to make your apologies sooner then you expect."  


* * *

  
Both men felt they needed a break, some time to process and come to terms with everything that had happened and had been said. As they parted ways, they agreed to meet at Dr. Reit's private lab on campus the next morning. Instead of going back into town to find a hotel, or even to find somewhere to eat, Johnathan found himself wandering the campus aimlessly, his mind far out-pacing is feet. It was hard to take in everything that had happened, how drastically his life had changed in just a few short hours. It was incredible how much your life could change on a whim, and this was just the most recent example for him.

There had been Five Great Moments in Johnathan's life, five instances where everything he believed and everything he held dear were irrevocably altered in the space of a few seconds.

The first had taken place when he was a young man, already in college and taking a few make-up courses before he could officially enter pre-law. He had been at a party for a friend of his at a campus frat. The place had been filled with smoke (of several different sorts) and cheap beer and more then a few cheap women, as well. Johnathan liked his friend, but that really wasn't his scene. So when he caught sight of another bored looking man about his own age slipping upstairs _without_ a mostly-drunk woman draped across him, and even more amazingly, without a _beer_ in his hand, Johnathan found himself following, hoping that this guy could at least give him some non-slurred conversation until enough time had passed that his friend would be too drunk to notice him leaving. When he caught up to the kid, a boy named Jeff as it turned out, they actually found they got along quite well. They had spent several hours just hanging out in Jeff's room, until Jeff finally asked Johnathan's opinion on the new Aster project.

Everyone had heard of computers, of course. He lived in a dorm, not a cave. But this was the first time Johnathan had actually been able to _touch_ one, to play with one and feel the keys clicking beneath his fingers. Never before had he felt so in control of his life. With a few dozen keystrokes, he was able to alter what appeared on the screen, making lines change color, or curve, or bounce insanely around. It was fascinating. Jeff then showed him how to remove the cover of the contraption and the two men spent the rest of the night taking the thing apart, studying it, and putting it oh-so-carefully back together again, lovingly polishing the cream colored sides of this fragile, perfect kit. Not only had Jeff seen a computer, _worked_ with one, but he had actually _built it_ with his own two hands. And had spent the entire evening ignoring the party to show Johnathan how to take it apart and do the same. It was incredible.

By the end of the week, Johnathan had given up on pre-law and had enrolled in every advanced math class he was eligible for. He also joined up with the circuitry and robotics clubs on campus as well. Computers were the future of the world, and from that night on, computers were Johnathan's future as well.

The second Great Event in his life happened about three months later. Walking between classes, he had seen a young woman, light blond hair blowing freely around her shoulders and a group of friends all laughing with her. It had been his first sight of Catherine. It was another two months before he managed to find her again, and another week before he worked up the courage to speak to her, but from the moment he saw her, he knew she was the one.

Three years later, Catherine told her newlywed husband that she was pregnant.

Fifteen years after that day came the fourth event, and the first that Johnathan had ever experienced as both life changing and _negative_. His daughter had gone missing, and the prime suspect was a man she had trusted, a man four times her age who had possibly taken advantage of her in more ways than Johnathan would let himself imagine. That day his world crashed down around his ears and left little to remain standing. Not even his marriage.

The fifth event, the last one, was unique in that it was both horrific and yet positive, in the end. Sitting there in his living room, his life in shambles around him, watching a woman he didn't know and yet felt he _did_ knew crying in front of him, while the woman he _thought_ he knew yet couldn't recognize sat at his side and spewed hate-filled curses. That first week afterward, Johnathan couldn't understand how he survived the experience, watching the end of everything he had ever held true, right down to his understanding of physics and how the world worked. Gone was the world of math and science, and all that remained was a mockery of magic and betrayal.

Looking back now, having survived the event, Johnathan could see how it led him to positive changes; how he was now a far better man, or was trying to be one at least, but the pain of that day never faded. The guilt of it, the shock of it, never lessened. Of all the Five Great Events, the last was the one that had truly changed not only the course of his life, but who he was as a man.

And now he found himself a man alone, wondering a strange collage campus alone at night, wondering if tonight had been the sixth event in his life, or if it was only a prelude of a greater event to come. Was this the moment that would once again change things? Or was this simply the quiet before the storm? And how appropriate was it that this was all taking place on a campus so like the one that was home to his first two events. Perhaps that was a good sign. Good things had always happened to him in college, they were good years. And as he walked alone through the darkening dusk, he could only hope that, that luck would hold.  


* * *

  
"Where did you get this thing, Radio Shack?"

Reit laughed and shook his head. "It's amazing how hard graduate students will work, and how well they'll keep their mouths shut in order to achieve their grades," he said, patting the side of the twisted monstrosity of wires and clamps lovingly. It stood at roughly six feet high and consisted of more miscellaneous components than Johnathan could ever hope to identify. It looked like a thousand Aster Computer Kits had bred and exploded across the room, twisting and twining around a oval metal frame that, if Johnathan didn't know better, would guess once held a large wall mirror. Though considering the looks of the _rest_ of the parts, he supposed he _didn't_ know any better, so it was probably best to just accept it for what it looked like until he was told otherwise.

"How close do you think you actually are?" he finally asked.

Reit considered carefully for a few moments before shrugging. "I suppose it all depends on how badly you want to return afterward."

Johnathan stood up from where he'd been crouched over a particularly odd-looking bit of welding and circuitry on left front side and looked at Reit, confused. "What do you mean by that?"

Reit sighed and gently rested his hand against the contraption. "I mean it is nearly done for the _initial_ trip. It is able to power up and even sustain it's energy levels for a good minute or two, easily long enough to send someone _through_. However, the power dies quickly, and without much warning, and it can take weeks to build up another sufficient charge to try again. That is _if_, of course, the circuits don't burn out entirely, and I should point out that more than half the time they _do_. I need to replace many of the parts between each test." He shook his head. "If we wished, we could probably be there by the end of the week. But once I go through, I won't be here to replace the broken bits, or build up the next charge. We'd be effectively stuck there."

"A one way trip," Johnathan noted, taking it in quietly.

"Indeed."

Johnathan watched Reit out of the corner of his eye for several moments before observing, "You're considering it anyway, aren't you?"

Reit turned, startled. "What do you mean?"

Johnathan turned to face him. "I mean, you sound as if you _are_ considering going through, despite the lack of a return ticket, and damn the consequences."

After a long moment of silent staring between the two men, Reit finally nodded. "I had been considering it, yes. There's not much left for me here, with my old life gone, and my current life spent working so hard to stay hidden. Forever unable to collaborate with the colleagues as I'd like to, _never_ again able to publish." He shrugged. "I was, however, waiting until the end of the semester before I decided one way or the other. I did, after all, make a contract with the dean of this school to teach these young minds, and it wouldn't be fair to skip out on them after only a partial education."

Johnathan nodded. "And how long until that's over?"

Reit looked away, watching his hand that was touching the machine, caressing the twisted metal almost lovingly. "Two weeks."  


* * *

  
Two weeks. It wasn't much time, yet it seemed an eternity.

Two weeks to decide. Two weeks to end the only life he'd ever known, or two weeks to say goodbye to his one hope of starting a new one.

Two weeks to choose.


End file.
